A FATHER has told an inquest how he held his dying son in his arms after he was struck by a car.

Alex Ludlow, 16, was thrown through the air as he stepped onto Elmstead Lane, Chislehurst, from in front of a parked bus, Croydon Coroner’s Court heard. He died of severe head injuries at the scene after colliding with a VW Polo which was overtaking the bus on September 22 last year. Dad Roger told the inquest that he was in his driveway when he saw the route 314 bus pull up and his son, who was coming home from playing rugby, get out at a hail and ride stop outside their house.

He said: “I saw him look back up the road and then down the road and he then moved across the road. He got to the white chevron area of the middle of the road and then he went out of view behind a hedge.

“At that point a car came into view travelling down Elmstead Lane, in the same direction as the bus on my side of the road. As the car flashed past I heard quite a hard impact and instantly realised that the car had hit Alex.”

He said: “I shouted out Alex’s name and ran down the road. He had been carried a long way. He was lying on the pavement with his head towards me and I picked him up and cradled him in my arms.”

Several passers-by came to help, including a retired doctor. When paramedics arrived they noticed that Alex had stopped breathing and first Mr Ludlow and then a police officer attempted CPR.

Fighting back tears in the witness box, Mr Ludlow said: “The air ambulance arrived but by then it was too late.” Roofer Lee Blyde, from Orpington, saw the impact as he was walking along the road. He told the inquest that the car was travelling “fast” and that the driver would not have seen Alex until his car was alongside the bus. In a statement read out in court, the driver David Chapple, said he was driving home and was overtaking the bus at the time of the collision. Mr Chapple said: “As I came alongside the bus, a boy ran out from in front of the bus without warning. It happened in a moment.”

Collision investigator PC John Carter said the car had been travelling between 39mph and 44mph on the 30mph road. He told the inquest: “The car was travelling in excess of the speed limit and, I feel, too fast for the prevailing conditions.” He said a bus at the roadside should alert drivers to potential danger. PC Carter added: “Even if the speed had been as little as 20mph, he would not have managed to stop in the available time and space.”

Recording a verdict of accidental death the Coroner Dr Roy Palmer said it would never be known if Alex would have survived an impact at lower speed. He said: “Even at 20mph the impact would have happened, but the nature of the injuries would have been much less severe.”

Hundreds of people marched along Elmstead Lane on Sunday to join the Bromley Extra’s Action Now campaign calling for improved road safety measures to be introduced.